As the music giant who produced everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, as well as composing myriad film and TV scores, Quincy Jones reputedly had the biggest address book in Hollywood.
He also had a wonderfully indiscreet anecdote for almost every entry in that book.
When the immensely talented and versatile producer – who knew Malcolm X, Buzz Aldrin, Marlon Brando and even Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, not to mention the kings and queens of jazz, pop and rap – sat down for interviews, publicists would hover nervously, waiting for him to drop the next bombshell.
It was Jones, for example, who revealed the full extent of his pal Brandos rapacious sex drive, telling an interviewer in 2018: Hed f*** anything. Anything! Hed f*** a mailbox. Richard Pryor. Marvin Gaye.
The widow of Hollywood comedian and actor Pryor later confirmed the truth of his claim, saying hed always been open about his bisexuality with close friends.
Michael Jackson holds eight awards as he poses with Quincy Jones at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, 1984.
Quincy Jones produced the biggest-selling album in history, Michael Jacksons Thriller (as well as Bad and Off The Wall)
Jones with Frank Sinatra at the 21st Annual Scopus Awards on January 13, 1991 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California
It was Jones, too, who said Elvis couldnt sing and the Beatles couldnt play. Yet even the stories that sounded too far-fetched, such as his claim to have gone out with the far younger Ivanka Trump (which she denied), often turned out to be true.
Yesterday, it was announced that Jones had died aged 91. The man who was married three times and had seven children by five women including actress Nastassja Kinski was surrounded by his family when he passed away peacefully at his home in Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles on Sunday night.
When he was 84, he boasted that he had 22 girlfriends who all knew each other. But then Jones, whose smooth affability was a major reason so many artists wanted to work with him, was always happy to share outrageous revelations about himself, not least his sex life and drug-taking. He said he lost his virginity aged 12 and got hooked on heroin at 15.
As befitting the man who produced the biggest-selling album in history, Michael Jacksons Thriller (as well as Bad and Off The Wall), Jones had plenty to say about the superstar who recorded it with him in just eight weeks in 1982.
They had fun working together, he said, except perhaps for the time when the King of Pop brought his pet boa constrictor, Muscles, into the studio and it wrapped itself around Joness leg. On another occasion, Jacksons pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, bit Joness young daughter, Rashida. However, Jones had few illusions about Jackson. In a 2018 interview, Jones accused the performer of filching other stars songs – citing the similarity of Donna Summerss State Of Independence with Jacksons Billie Jean. The notes dont lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as theycome, he said.
Michael stole a lot of stuff. He stole a lot of songs… Greedy, man. Greedy, he said. I hate to get into this publicly, but Michael stole a lot of stuff.
Although he amassed a fortune estimated at $500 million, Jones – who won 28 Grammys over a 70-year career – was born into poverty in Chicago in 1933, or as he put it, the biggest black ghetto in the worst depression – there was nothing but gangsters round us. His paternal grandmother was a former slave from Kentucky who was raped by his grandfather, a Welsh slave owner.
Quincy Jones works with Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg on the ET soundtrack in 1982
Quincy Jones at the 33rd Grammy Awards in New York in February 1991
Quincy Jones said he lost his virginity aged 12 and got hooked on heroin at 15. (Pictured, a post from his Instagram on November 3, 2024)
President Barack Obama presents a National Medal of Arts to Quincy Jones at the White House in March 2011
Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones at the We Are The World 25 Years for Haiti recording session held at Jim Henson Studios in Hollywood in February 2010
Joness schizophrenic mother was committed to a mental hospital when he was very young, and he was raised by his carpenter father, who worked for local criminals. He started getting into trouble at an early age and, when he was seven, a local villain nailed his hand to a fence with a switchblade, leaving Jones with a scar for life. He vowed to become a gangster himself when he grew up.
Then the family moved to Seattle where Jones recalled how, aged ten, he and his brothers broke into a community hall.
I saw this piano in the dark. I walked in that room and touched the keys and every cell of my body said, This is what youre going to do for the rest of your life, he said. That day I stopped wanting to be a gangster and started wanting to be a musician…Id have been dead or in prison if I hadnt done that.
He started practising the trumpet and took up jazz. His first band was short-lived after their car was hit by a bus, leaving four of the members dead and only 14-year-old Jones alive.
Jones, who claimed to know 26 languages including Mandarin, Arabic and Japanese, earned a scholarship to music college at 15 and never looked back. Although in a tribute to his early days he continued to carry a gun, he played trumpet for the studio band that supported Elvis and in various jazz bands before moving in the early 1960s into the more lucrative career of composing. He became the first black vice-president of a major record company in 1961, one of many firsts in a pioneering career.
His film credits included The Italian Job and In The Heat Of The Night while he arranged music for Ella Fitzgerald, Nana Mouskouri and Frank Sinatra.
Working with the notoriously aggressive Sinatra (for whom he scored Fly Me To The Moon) was challenging. It takes a lot of guts to tell Sinatra what to do, man. You better have your stuff together because the man takes no prisoners, said Jones in 2006. He made sure he never criticised Sinatra in public. The star easily resorted to violence – You might say the wrong thing. Didnt take much, recalled Jones. But he couldnt fight for s***.
As for the Beatles, calling them the worst musicians in the world in a notorious 2018 interview, he went on: Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Dont even talk about it.
Quincy Jones and Eddie Murphy at San Vicente Bungalows in West Hollywood in October 2019
Quincy Jones and Naomi Campbell at the American Icon Awards Gala in Los Angeles in May 2019
Sir Elton John and Quincy Jones at the singers Aids Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party in West Hollywood in February 2019
I remember once we were in the studio with [Beatles producer] George Martin, and Ringo had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldnt get it.
It wasnt only musical icons he was ready to trash. Black cultural heroes were also in his sights. Jones claimed he and jazz legend Ray Charles bought heroin off future black civil rights activist Malcolm X when they were teenage members of Joness first jazz band. Everybody in the band bought heroin off him, he added.
Jones, who was 15 at the time said he was hooked on the drug for five months but realised he had to give it up after he fell down five flights of stairs.
Joness love life was similarly colourful, although one woman it never included was Marilyn Monroe. Frank [Sinatra] was always trying to hook me up with Marilyn Monroe, but Marilyn Monroe had a chest that looked like pears, man, said Jones with his usual delicacy in 2018.
There might have been more girlfriends than the 22 he still claimed aged 84, but his daughters begged him not to go out with women younger than them. When youve been a dog all your life, God gives you beautiful daughters and you have to suffer, he said.
For their part, they complained he sorely neglected them for his career. Everything else was second, which wasnt so right for us. But thats how it was, said Jolie Jones, the eldest child.
In later years, Jones spent six days a year at a Stockholm clinic being treated with cutting-edge medical technology that he predicted would allow him to live to 110. It must have been one of the few goals he never achieved.